Over the course of his solo career,
Shintaro Sakamoto has used his breezy, genre-defying style to express a wide variety of situations and emotions. On
How to Live with a Phantom, he created beguiling mirages; on
Let's Dance Raw, he delivered post-apocalyptic lounge with brilliant irony. Like so many other artists during the COVID-19 global pandemic,
Sakamoto took inspiration from those difficult times, and on
Like a Fable, he uses the nostalgic and escapist aspects of his sound to craft a musical sanctuary. It's no coincidence that his fourth album offers some of his sweetest and most immediate songs. Driven by a summery guiro and flirty backing vocals by
OOIOO's
AYA, the record's shimmying title track is a standout that finds
Sakamoto comparing quarantine life to Kamishibai ("paper play"), a type of Japanese street theater popular in the 1930s and '40s. The blurriness of pandemic life is a particularly apt subject for
Sakamoto, since time feels almost irrelevant to the way his music drifts along at its own pace (six years separated this album and its predecessor, Love If Possible) and borrows so much from different styles and eras. His deep love of sounds from the '70s continues with "Floating Weeds"' cowbell-punctuated strut and the bubbling disco whimsy of "One Day," but he reaches farther back on "You Have Time But I Don't," which bears the influence of '50s surf that he introduced on Love If Possible and reaffirms that he can add just about any sunny-sounding influence into his music and make it his own. At the time of
Like a Fable's release,
Sakamoto described it as his pop album, but true to form, he delivers the unexpected. Where his previous work often expanded on a single mood, this record runs the emotional gamut, spanning the wryly wobbly trombone and tinny drum machine of "That Was Illegal" to the dubby sophistication of "The Thickness of Love." Once again,
Like a Fable's sincerest-sounding songs, such as "Star" and "The Whereabouts of Romance," are among the most winning on first listen, but it's impressive that he covers so much territory without sacrificing the light touch that's made his solo career exceptional. As eclectic as it is, song for song
Like a Fable is one of
Sakamoto's strongest albums, and the pleasure his music offers is especially welcome this time around. ~ Heather Phares